Local

Almost half of Palm Beach County candidates endorsed by Palm Beach County Human Rights Council won in local elections Tuesday night.

Almost half of Palm Beach County candidates endorsed by Palm Beach County Human Rights Council won in local elections Tuesday night.

Below shows how all PBCHRC-approved candidates fared. Their names are bolded. Vote counts come from tallies read just before 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.

* 3/16 Correction: the text of this article has been updated to reflect that Joseph Russo Jr. is the candidate endorsed by the PBCHRC. Russo will face candidate Rachelle Litt in a run -off election on March 28.

Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie won re-election to a second three-year term. She beat challenger Al Zucaro with 55 percent of 11,721 votes cast. Haynie, a Republican, voted in 2011 against adopting a policy to protect LGBT people from discrimination. She was Deputy Mayor back then. She switched her vote in 2013 before she ran for, and won, her first mayoral election in 2014.

City Councilor Scott Singer beat challenger Patty Dervishi with 71 percent of 11,348 votes. Andy Thomson lost to Andrea O’Rourke, who spent a year editing BocaWatch, a Zucaro-run blog that rails against building more in Boca.

Boynton Beach Vice Mayor Mack McCray will face a runoff election against dermatologist James DeVoursney on March 28. Neither candidate won a majority of the 1,238 votes cast in the three-way race, which included Woodrow Hay. The McCray-DeVoursney-Hay vote tally was 47-38-15 percent.

In Delray Beach, neither PBCHRC-approved candidate won races for two open seats on the City Commission. Kelly Barrette received 28 percent of the vote in a four-way race won by Jim Chard, who got 56 percent of 6,279 votes in the race for Commission Seat 2. Contenders Richard Alteus and Anneze Barthelemy each won eight percent. Josh Smith lost to Shirley Johnson 36-64 for Seat 4’s race, where 6,001 residents voted.

In Greenacres, Jonathan G. Pearce lost the mayoral election to Joel Flores 45-55 percent. Councilor Paula Bousquet won re-election with 53 percent of the vote against Michael Albert and Bill Kluth, who got 20 and 28 percent.

In Lake Worth, three-term Commissioner Chris McVoy lost to Omari Hardy, a teacher at Roosevelt Community Middle School in West Palm Beach. Omari won 51 percent of 2,461 votes in a three-way race between him, McVoy and private investigator William Joseph. Retired home builder and activist Herman Robinson won 52 percent of 2,335 votes against Maryann Polizzi and Ellie Whittey.

Two PBCHRC-endorsed Palm Beach Gardens candidates won open seats on City Council. Democrat Mark Marciano blew out Republican Michael Paolercio 66-34. Local races are typically nonpartisan, but both candidates had recommendations from their county parties. Democrat Matthew Lane won a three-way race with 50.3 percent of the vote against Republican Ron Berman and Democrat Kathryn “Katie” Gettinger. Rachelle Litt will face off against Joseph Russo Jr. in a runoff on March 28. Litt got 37 percent of the vote to Russo’s 34, with George Wicker and Kevin Easton receiving 20 and 9 percent each. Russo is the son of the former longtime councilor and mayor after whom he is named.